Read Online Betti on the High Wire by Lisa Railsback - Free Book Online

Rooney licked my missing toes under the table and I tried not to scream.
    “Spaghetti,” announced Lucy. “Dad made it.”
    “Spooogetti,” I repeated. It turned out that spaghetti was a big bowl of snakes. I didn’t know that Melons ate snakes too, even though Mr. and Mrs. Buckworth ate our snake at the circus camp.
    I picked one up with my finger and stared at it up close. “Skinny,” I said. “No eyes and no mouth.”
    Lucy giggled and licked her lips. “Yummy,” she said, which must’ve been the word for thanking the snakes for letting us eat them.
    I grabbed a whole pile of skinny blind snakes in my hands. I chewed and slurped until my plate was empty. “Yummy,” I said.
    Mrs. Buckworth smiled and gave me more. I didn’t tell Mrs. Buckworth that I’d already eaten three different meals on three different airplanes. But I kept eating snakes, and more snakes, until the Buckworths all stopped eating at the same time.
    Mrs. Buckworth looked a little worried. “Um, Betti? You must be so hungry! But there’s plenty of spaghetti, okay?”
    Lucy started to laugh like crazy and picked up a pile of snakes with her little fingers. She stuffed a whole handful in her mouth.
    I was supposed to eat my spaghetti snakes with a fork. That’s what Mrs. Buckworth said, and she showed me how. I’d seen forks used for all sorts of things, like starting taxis, but never for eating. Forks really didn’t make much sense; it was much easier to eat with my fingers because my snakes kept slithering off my fork.
    Mr. Buckworth pushed his plate aside and put his elbows on the table so he could stare at me extra close. “We’re so happy you’re finally here, Betti.”
    Lucy bounced in her chair as if she had baby mice trapped in her pants. “Especially me. I couldn’t wait. If I had to wait another day I was gonna die.”
    I set my fork down and stopped chewing. Lucy was going to die? I gulped.
    “It’ll take some time for you to get used to being here,” said Mrs. Buckworth in her soft voice. “America is so different.”
    “Your country’s kind of scary,” said Lucy. “And poor.”
    “Lucy.”
    Lucy shrugged.
    “But we’ve been trying to learn about your country too. So we can understand. Haven’t we, Luce. Let’s show Betti the book.”
    Lucy ran to the living room and grabbed an enormous book that sat by itself in the middle of a glass table. “Here.” She held it out to me.
    I turned the pages of the book slowly, while the Buckworths huddled around me. The three of them looked at each picture and then looked at me.
    The Buckworths must’ve thought that I was some sort of expert on my whole country. They must’ve thought that I loved their big book, because soon I started flipping fast through all the pictures until I got to the very end. Actually I was just looking for pictures of Auntie Moo or the leftover kids or the tallest lady in the whole world with a tail.
    Nothing.
    The shiny pictures must’ve been taken before the war, a long, long time ago.
    “Your country is pretty, Betti,” said Lucy, leaning right against me so her cheek touched mine.
    I nodded. “My trees are pretty. My animals are pretty. I climb better than monkeys. Sela was pretty one. She got adopted because she is pretty. Curls and eyes. Other leftover kids inside pretty. That’s what Auntie Moo say. Not pretty like Sela, but very pretty on inside.
    “This book ...” I sadly shook my head. “People have fingers. And toes. No circus people. No hot spots. No houses like broken bones. No pretty on inside people.”
    My good eye started to tear up. I sniffled a little and closed my eye tight like I had a bug in it, even though there were no bugs in the Buckworths’ house. “I think this country is ...” I closed their big book. “Not my country.”

Moms and Mermaids
    BED ROOOM.
    Square and yellow. Almost as big as the lion cage. Auntie Moo and all the leftover kids could have slept in it, even though Lucy said it was all mine.